Kathmandu, April 22: Nepal’s leg-spinner Sandeep Lamichhane shattered the world record for the fastest 100 wickets in ODI and a maiden century from Kushal Malla helped Nepal register a wide-margin victory over Oman in the ACC Premier Cup on Friday.
With the exemplary performance of the duo, Nepal defeated the visitors by 84 runs at TU Cricket Ground to the delight of the home crowd. This is the second victory of the host in the ACC Premier Cup.
It was also the first time in 50 matches that Nepal scored more than 300 runs in the ODI format of cricket.
Nepal beats Oman by seven wickets
Meanwhile, quick-fire Malla also shattered a national record to become the first Nepali cricketer to score a century off 59 balls.
In total, Malla scored 108 runs off 64 balls including four boundaries and ten sixes.
He is the sixth Nepali batsman to score a century in ODIs. Other players who hold the record include Paras Khadka, Rohit Poudel, Dipendra Singh Airee, Kushal Bhurtel and Aasif Sheikh.
During Friday’s match, Oman while chasing the target of 311 runs given by Nepal, managed to score only 226 runs. After losing the ninth wicket in 46.3 overs, Oman's last batsman could not come to the crease due to injury and Nepal won the match.
Sandeep Lamichhane and Karan KC bagged three wickets each for Nepal while Dipendra Singh Airee grabbed two wickets and Lalit Rajbanshi bagged one.
Earlier, Nepal, which lost the toss and was invited to bat first, scored a record 310 runs losing eight wickets in the allotted 50 overs.
Oman’s Ayaan Khan took two wickets while Bilal Khan, Kaleemullah, Zeeshan Maqsood, Fayyaz Butt, Aquib Ilyas and Jatinder Singh took a wicket each.
After defeating Oman, one of the strong teams in Group B of the ACC Premier Cup, Nepal has presented itself as a strong contender to lift the trophy.
